He could have been an Olof Palme. But his political career got nipped in the bud when he, one day prior to being drafted into military service, suggested Palme for a political appointment he was being offered. The rest, as they say, is history.

But that way Sweden gained an outstanding economist who has been enormously prolific in over half a century devoted to economic research.

Not that he was not wanted elsewhere, as Gylfason points out. Over the years he was offered challenging jobs with international organisations and even a Swedish daily newspaper, which he always declined.

"I became convinced that my right place was in academia," Lindbeck says, "rather than in politics or public administration. One reason, of course, is that academic work is so intellectually rewarding. But another equally important reason is that in academia I can do, and say, exactly what I want, which is impossible in large organizations."

It may seem surprising that someone with such artistic leanings as Lindbeck would turn out to become an economist. Gifted enough to have performed his own sonata for clarinet and piano at a public concert at the age of eighteen, he is also an outstanding painter (he has exhibited his paintings in Stockholm on three occasions since 1997). But other experiences during his childhood in Sweden 's far north, where he grew up, left a lasting impression in him and would eventually determine his professional bearings.

"My father was in charge of the welfare administration in northern Sweden," —he explains— "and I sometimes followed him on his travels (in the late 1930s and during the 1940s) to poor villages, where people could hardly survive without government support." The encounters with these villagers became a major source for his interest in social issues. Not surprisingly, over the years he has written extensively about the welfare state.

Lindbeck tells much more about himself in this interview. Click on the link below to read it whole and, thus, gain a privileged insight into the man behind an outstanding economist.

• Read the Assar Lindbeck interview in full.